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PHIL-UA 1; Central Problems in Philosophy; T/TH 9:30-10:45; Michelle Dyke
This course will provide an introduction to some of the classic and enduring problems in philosophy and to the methods that philosophers use for tackling them. Our readings, writing assignments, and class discussions will be structured around four central questions: What is knowledge? What is the relationship between the human mind and the physical body? Is our world causally determined, and does that preclude the possibility of free will? What is required for moral responsibility? We will compare historical discussions of each of these issues with work by more recent philosophers.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Mondays 12:30-1:45
Mondays 2:00-3:15
Fridays 9:30-10:45
Fridays 11:00-12:15
PHIL-UA 3; Ethics and Society; M/W 4:55-6:10; Mike Zhao
An introduction to philosophy through the study of selected moral and social issues. Topics may include inequalities and justice; public vs. private good; regulation of sexual conduct and abortion; war and capital punishment.
PHIL-UA 4; Life and Death; M/W 8:00-9:15; Martín Abreu Zavaleta
An introduction to philosophy through the study of issues bearing on life and death. Topics may include the definition and value of life; grounds for creating, preserving, and taking life; personal identity; ideas of death and immortality; abortion and euthanasia.
PHIL-UA 5; Minds and Machines; T/TH 3:30-4:45; David Chalmers
This course will be an introduction to some central issues in philosophy through the lens of modern technology. We will consider issues such as "How do we know about the external world?", "What is the relationship between mind and body?", "How can we know about other minds?", and "Can machines be conscious?", in part by thinking hard about technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Fridays 9:30-10:45
Fridays 11:00-12:15
Fridays 12:30-1:45
Fridays 2:00-3:15
PHIL-UA 20; History of Ancient Philosophy; M/W 9:30-10:45; Jessica Moss
An introduction to Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy. We will study the PreSocratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Sceptics, exploring their answers to questions about the nature of reality, the nature and possibility of knowledge, and how one should live.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Wednesdays 4:55-6:10
Thursdays 9:30-10:45
Thursdays 11:00-12:15
Thursdays 4:55-6:10
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 39; Recent Continental Philosophy; T/TH 3:30-4:45; John Richardson
Examines selected works by some of the major figures in German and French philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. Beginning with later Heidegger, the course will go on to treat Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, and perhaps one or two others.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Mondays 11:00-12:15
Mondays 3:30-4:45
Fridays 11:00-12:15
Fridays 12:30-1:45
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 43; Empirical Moral Psychology; T/TH 12:30-1:45; Ian Grubb
Surveys recent empirical studies of how humans make moral judgments and decisions, and assesses the significance of this work for some of the traditional concerns of moral philosophy. Readings are drawn from social psychology, evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophical texts from the Western ethical tradition.
Prerequisite: one introductory course.
PHIL-UA 45; Political Philosophy; T/TH 9:30-10:45; Daniel Viehoff
This course will focus on the value of democracy and related questions about political equality. The central question it will ask is: What’s so great about giving everyone (including people who are quite incompetent) an equal say over our laws? Possible answers will also help us think about some more applied issues: Should there be institutionally enforced limits on the decisions that democratic bodies can make, of the sort associated with judicial review? If we do give everyone an equal say, what (and who) should determine the limits of the franchise? Should foreigners be given a say over our laws? Should prisoners?
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Thursdays 3:30-4:45
Fridays 9:30-10:45
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 50; Medical Ethics; T/TH 8:00-9:15; Alexander Webb
Examines moral issues in medical practice and research. Topics include euthanasia and quality of life; deception, hope, and paternalism; malpractice and unpredictability; patient rights, virtues, and vices; animal, fetal, and clinical research; criteria for rationing medical care; ethical principles, professional codes, and case analysis (for example, Quinlan, Willowbrook, Baby Jane Doe).
PHIL-UA 70-001; Logic; T/TH 4:55-6:10; Christopher Prodoehl
An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.
PHIL-UA 70-002; Logic; M/W 6:20-7:35; Matthew Moss
An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.
PHIL-UA 70-003; Logic; M/W 4:55-6:10; Christopher Prodoehl
An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.
PHIL-UA 72; Advanced Logic; T/TH 11:00-12:15; Cian Dorr
In this course we will tackle a series of deep and beautiful results about the in-principle limits on what can be calculated, described, and proved by finite beings, culminating in Gödel’s incompleteness theorems (first published in 1931). The results in question are central for logic and philosophy of mathematics, and also of broad significance for metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Moreover, working up to them is a great way of acquiring a range of broadly useful skills and technical tools having to do with the construction and evaluation of precise statements and deductive arguments. The course will necessarily be pretty demanding, but nothing will be presupposed beyond an introductory course in logic.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Mondays 4:55-6:10
Thursdays 4:55-6:10
Prerequisite: Logic (PHIL-UA 70)
PHIL-UA 76; Epistemology; M/W 11:00-12:15; Ginger Schultheis
This course is an introduction to epistemology, the study of knowledge and rational belief.
We will consider questions such as the following:
· What does it take to have knowledge and what can we know?
· What does it take to rationally believe something and what can we rationally believe?
· Why should we value knowledge and rational belief?
· How should we respond to disagreement with our peers?
· Could it ever be reasonable to believe that a miracle occurred on the basis of someone’s testimony?
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Thursdays 12:30-1:45
Thursdays 4:55-6:10
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 80; Philosophy of Mind; M/W 12:30-1:45; Antonia Peacocke
We all have minds. But what is a mind? What kinds of things can think and have conscious experiences? In this class we ask these and other questions in order to examine how minds fit into the world as we know it. We will ask whether minds are material or immaterial things. We will ask whether minds are computers. We will ask how the mind represents things outside of it. And we will ask whether our minds determine who we are as people.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Wednesdays 4:55-6:10
Fridays 11:00-12:15
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 90; Philosophy of Science; M/W 9:30-10:45; Michael Strevens
What differentiates scientific activities from other sorts of pursuits? Is there some single “scientific method” that can be applied to all scientific problems? Can empirical data provide grounds for thinking that our scientific theories are really true? Are the methods of discovery used in mathematics fundamentally different from those used in the empirical sciences? We will consider these questions and how they have been addressed in the work of Popper, Kuhn, Goodman, Lakatos, Quine, Carnap, Russell and Hempel.
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 101; Topics in the History of Philosophy; M/W 9:30-10:45; Julia Borcherding
“A Serious Proposal to the Ladies”: Early Modern Women on Education, Liberty, Love, and Happiness
This course will survey early modern women’s writings on education, liberty, love, and happiness. How did women of the 17th and 18th centuries think and write about these issues? By looking at the works of a variety of women philosophers - some more in the style of philosophical argumentation, others more literary - we will uncover a rich tradition of women thinking about women and sexual politics, long before the advent of 19th- and 20th-century feminism.
Prerequisite: History of Ancient Philosophy (PHIL-UA 20) or History of Modern Philosophy (PHIL-UA 21).
PHIL-UA 102; Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy; M/W 11:00-12:15; Anthony Appiah
This course has two aims: first, to explore the concept of race, some of its history, and various critiques and elaborations of it; and, second, to examine some of the normative and conceptual issues surrounding the most morally significant of the ways in which “race” has mattered for social life, namely as the concept that defines the object of the attitudes, practices, institutions and beliefs we call “racist.” We shall end with a discussion of some possible responses to racism. In particular, we shall explore the question whether (and, if so, in what sense) the state ought to be colorblind; and whether (and, again, if so, in what sense) we ought ideally to be colorblind in our own private lives.
Prerequisite: Ethics (PHIL-UA 40), The Nature of Values (PHIL-UA 41), or Political Philosophy (PHIL-UA 45).
PHIL-UA 103; Topics in Metaphysics & Epistemology; T/TH 2:00-3:15; Peter Unger
Though there will be many shorter selections read and discussed, as well, this course will be primarily concerned with what’s presented in Professor Unger’s most recent book, Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. This book discloses how terribly little has ever been accomplished in the core of academic philosophy – in metaphysics, and in the most metaphysical parts of, or aspects of, epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. What’s more, it exposes how terribly little has been even attempted on that most central philosophical front in the last half-century, or more. For philosophical sophisticates, this will seem shocking: Most academic philosophers are under the impression that, with the work of such brilliant thinkers as Saul Kripke, David Lewis and Hilary Putnam, mainstream philosophy has made some real contributions to our understanding of how things are, in certain quite deep and general respects, with concrete reality - with the likes of water and gold, and tables and chairs, and sentient beings, too. But, as Empty Ideas explains, that’s all just an illusion, pretty easily recognized as such, when, as the book tries to make happen, philosophical sophisticates are awakened from their dogmatic slumbers. As Professor Unger greatly hopes, you will greatly enjoy being awakened from any and all of your own dogmatic slumbers, whatever yours may be.
Prerequisite: Epistemology (PHIL-UA 76) or Metaphysics (PHIL-UA 78) or Philosophy of Science (PHIL-UA 90)
PHIL-UA 104; Topics in Language and Mind; T/TH 11:00-12:15; Paul Horwich
“Socrates was poisoned.” By making those marks on a piece of paper or by mouthing the corresponding vocal noises we can make a claim about someone who lived in the distant past. How is that possible? How do our words come to mean what they do? How do they manage to pick out or latch onto particular portions of reality, even ones with which we’ve never had any contact? How does language enable us to convey thoughts – some of them true -- about everything from black holes, to the hopes of a friend, to properties of prime numbers? For that matter, what is meaning? What is truth? And what is thinking? This course will explore these and other philosophical questions about language through a reading of seminal works by 20th-century thinkers, including Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, and Chomsky.
Prerequisite: Logic (PHIL-UA 70) and one of the following: Philosophy of Mind (PHIL-UA 80) or Philosophy of Language (PHIL-UA 85)
PHIL-UA 201; Advanced Seminar; W 2-4; Zoë Johnson King
This seminar will cover a selection of topics currently under active discussion in philosophy. It is designed to expose future honors students to possible topics for an honors thesis, but it is not limited to those planning to enter the honors program. The seminar is open to all philosophy majors with a grade-point average of 3.65 or higher in philosophy and overall. It has a prerequisite of two prior courses numbered higher than PHIL-UA 7.
Prerequisite: Two prior courses numbered higher than PHIL-UA 7. Email philosophy.advisor@nyu.edufor enrollment permission.
PHIL-UA 202; Honors Thesis Workshop; W 4-6; Paul Horwich
A seminar taken in fall of senior year. Students begin developing their thesis projects by presentations in the seminar, which is led by a faculty member. Students also begin to meet individually with a separate faculty adviser. See the description of the honors program in the “Program” section.
Email philosophy.advisor@nyu.edu for enrollment permission.
Cross-Listed Courses
PHIL-UA 53; Ethics & the Environment; M/W 2:00-3:15; Dale Jamieson
This course introduces philosophical ethics through an engagement with environmental issues of population growth and resource use, sustainability, non-human animal welfare, biodiversity loss, environmental justice, and global climate change. No prior experience with philosophy is required. The two main goals of the course are to provide students with a more sophisticated conceptual vocabulary to make and evaluate ethical arguments across domains and to engage students’ ethical reasoning and reflection on environmental issues in particular.
You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:
Tuesdays 12:30-1:45
Tuesdays 3:30-4:45
Prerequisite: one introductory course
PHIL-UA 422; Living a Good Life: Greek; M/W 2:00-3:15; Michah Gottlieb